Preview of the PDF - e23 - Steve Jackson Games

Though their name has become associated with everything unwieldy and
obsolete, from bankrupt superpowers to last year's computers, the tale of
the dinosaurs is one of the greatest success stories ever. Mammals
evolved alongside the earliest dinosaurs and, for more than 165 million years,
survived by being too small for the "terrible lizards" to bother chasing.* Long
before the dagger-tooths and dire wolves, there were five-ton carnosaurs and
man-sized raptors. Before the mammoths and woolly rhinos, there were
sauropods as long as blue whales, elephant-sized hornfaces, armored ankylosaurs,
and huge herds of hadrosaurs. Not until the dinosaurs had been gone for
63 million years did hominids start banging rocks together.
After millenia of their bones inspiring myths of dragons and other monsters,
dinosaurs were rediscovered in the mid-19th century (the word "dinosaur" is
some 153 years old as I write), and quickly bullied their way into popular culture.
Now, despite being extinct, their commercial dominion is enormous. We
should look so good after 65 million years.
This book is a bestiary and chronology of the "interesting and extinct," from
the trilobites of the Paleozoic to the early tool-users of the Pleistocene. It is primarily
intended as an aid for the GURPS Time Travel GM who wishes to send
PCs to any era in prehistoric Earth, but it is also a source of monsters and lost
worlds for any genre – Supers, Space, Atomic Horror, Fantasy, Cliffhangers,
even Cyberpunk and Old West. Chapter 9 gives campaign and adventure suggestions
for all of these worlds and more, including stone age campaigns – realistic,
fractured history, and slapstick. Chapters 9 and 10 give character creation
and roleplaying information for early hominids and humans,
with a brief guide to shamanic magic. Also included are a
bibliography and filmography, for serious dinophiles.
I would like to thank the Dinosaur Society for their
help with this project and their sponsorship of dinosaur
research and education. Thanks also to the paleontologists,
museum staff, writers, and film-makers (some of
them, anyway) for fueling a life-long fascination with the
"terrible lizards" and other prehistoric creatures.
– Stephen Dedman
About the Author
Stephen Dedman has been an education officer and used dinosaur salesman
for the Western Australian Museum, the manager of a science fiction bookshop,
an editorial assistant for Australian Physicist, and an experimental subject. His
other writing credits include GURPS Space Atlas 4, GURPS Martial Arts
Adventures, a dinosaur bestiary for Car Wars, and two Villains and Vigilantes
adventures. His short stories have appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction,
Asimov's Science Fiction, Science Fiction Age, and several anthologies. He lives
in Perth with his wife, two saber-clawed cats, and a large collection of plastic
dinosaurs.
*Although "terrible lizard" is the common translation of "dinosaur," it should be noted that
when Richard Owen coined the word in his 1842 text, British Fossil Reptiles, he gave the derivation
as "fearfully great lizards."
Amour GURPS
Steve Jackson Games is committed to
full support of the GURPS system. Our
address is SJ Games, Box 18957, Austin,
TX 78760. Please include a selfaddressed,
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time you write us! Resources now available
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includes new rules and articles for
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the new Dino Hunt! It also covers top
releases from other companies
—Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun,
and many more.
New supplements and adventures.
We're always working on new material,
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including us — but we do our best to fix
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Page References
Rules and statistics in this book are
specifically for the GURPS Basic Set,
Third Edition, Revised. Any page reference
that begins with a B refers to the
GURPS Basic Set — e.g., p. B102 means
p. 102 of the GURPS Basic Set, Third
Edition, Revised. A reference that begins
with CI indicates GURPS Compendium I:
Character Creation. A reference that
begins with TT indicates GURPS Time
Travel.
INTRODUCTION 5